Pretty much everywhere you look you get the idea that the world's environment is in loads of trouble. Only a few people are prepared to say "I've seen plenty of trees, cut them down, there's plenty". World opinion seems to be going against them. Most informed forecasts show a big environmental collapse around 2020, with things getting tougher till then for large numbers of people, mainly poor people in other places.
so that's bad
...meanwhile, our wasteful culture is eating up resources at an ever increasing rate, producing lots of marvellous doohickies, and also producing lots of packaging waste. Competition and science are working together for us, increasing the power of computing technology at a phenomenal rate. One digital pet in the 50's would have been a bus shelter, or something. so that's good
Science is also firing on all cylinders when it comes to tinkering with mother nature's secrets. Modern medicine allows some of us to live without dying of tooth decay, smallpox, fungal infection and all of that, and that's good for me. Cloning, test tube babies, the human genome project , DNA splicing, all very admirable as pure science, and if it can be done someone will do it.
(if its maybe a bit dangerous and morally dodgy, well what do I know?)
We are getting pretty good at sending satellites and bits of technology out into space, encircling the globe with communications for our mobile phones & TV. Probes are exploring our little neighbourhood. probably some good stuff out there. Its a bit harder sending real people though, too much air, food & etc. are needed.
So What!!
Well computers don't need air, food, company, don't have any concept of time, don't suffer from boredom. don't complain. They are also being made smaller and smaller. In the time it has taken me to write this one (very fast) computer could have told another (very fast) computer everything there is to know. {really??} Computer-human symbiosis could be the next stage of human evolution, if we are given enough time.
...damn borg have no sense of humour. anyway...
Seems to me that computers would be perfect hosts for taking the genetic material of earth out into space, using solar power to fire up the life giving programs when necessary. It doesn't matter how long it takes. When the pods land, if ever, we won't be here, and will never know the result, but psychologically it may be important for our species to know we may live again, or that something may live again.
Seeding the stars
is a race between us destroying the environment for nothing, or using it up in an attempt to spread our earth's type of life to other worlds.
It will be great if someone does something about the idea. I am not going to do anything. I will trust to science and to the far-sighted and responsible men and women of the future.